As you probably know, the IRS recently apologized for targeting organizations with names including “patriot” and “tea party” for tax audits and tax-exempt application delays prior to the 2012 election.

In response to that, on Tuesday, May 21 during the noon hour, the Whatcom Tea Party held a rally at the corner of Cornwall and West Magnolia.

Lining all four corners of the intersection, protesters held signs that said,  "IRS Apology Not Accepted", "End IRS Corruption", "Stop IRS Political Discrimination", "Enemies Lists Are So 1970's", "Now, Just Taxes. Next, Just Health Care", "We Warned You About Things Like This", "We the People..." and more.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the kind of government corruption that the IRS is guilty of, really is what the tea parties have been warning us about. At the same time the IRS story was breaking, President Obama was telling Ohio State University graduates,

Should we really, Mr. President? Should we really? Glen Kessler at The Washington Post politics blog suggests we have reason to be concerned:

If the current scandalabra that we're seeing in Washington D.C., doesn't give us pause to question authority, and to be wary of tyranny, then what the hell does?

Here is a video about a county in Oregon that's so cash-strapped there's not enough money for law enforcement anymore.  Citizen volunteers have stepped up to fill the void -- with "Citizens Against Crime" handling theft cases and patrolling their roads and neighborhoods.  These are not "vigilantes" but law-abiding citizens protecting themselves from crime and chaos.   

This government has been forced to cut back severely on one of its most central duties.  

Watch this short video, and learn firsthand why the Oregon county bumbled into their predicament:

Spoiler alert:  Josephine County is broke because the BLM and environmentalists shut down local  logging (a major part of the local economy, and a source of county government revenue), and now the citizens have to perform a critical government service by themselves because their government is broke.  Read more about the story by clicking here, and here.   The county tried to raise taxes, but with less work the people couldn't afford it and voted no.  Whatcom County's just decided to give up over 8,800 acres of productive DNR timberland for a park, even though it's finances are often in crisis.  Wages have been frozen for quite a while, furloughs and basic services are cut while planning, trail and park spending grows steadily.

Law enforcement is a legitimate and necessary government function. Environmental protection has been over-prioritized to criminalize normal human activities at a tremendous cost to individuals and the collective. Whatcom County could go down hard if we don’t get our priorities straight. Just like that county in Oregon.

Talk around town is that votes are in the bag for the reconveyance to pass tomorrow March 12, no matter what anyone says at the public hearing that starts at 6 pm at the courthouse.

Whatcom County’s Executive and the Parks Department have never bothered to fake objectivity.   Git ‘er done, baby.  Most of county council has been partnering and kabbitzing and slicing up the pie since last summer, aglow and intent on ending productive forestry on this 8,844 acres of land to create a massive park.

Is there any proof that DNR logging has done harm to the water in Lake Whatcom? Nope.  Is there a commitment from Washington  Ecology that "lake health" will change, or that its brief summer algae blooms will diminish if this land becomes "park"?  Nope.  But deliberate and panicky “save the water” claims sold a pack of true believers to think it will make a difference.  Proponents have done everything in their power to stop DNR from harvesting timber - the public's "green" renewable resource.   Despite common sense, snake oil salesmen have done very well.

The Parks Department's full-blown “vista version” park cost estimate was over $6 million for work that would drag out over twenty years.  To make up for the sticker shock, Parks unveiled a revenue generation plan that (surprise!) would have government sell conservation easements by the acre or in big blocks in the lucrative mitigation marketplace.  Hey - investors, check out Whatcom County, it's a gold mine!  This growing ripoff financial industry likes to find environmentally healthy places to flip their paper - with middlemen getting rich by doing and producing absolutely nothing.  Conservation easements can anchor "restoration" grant funds too, a rent-seeker sideline that keeps on giving.

At least four on council don't care that hard working people in cork boots and red suspenders will lose this great place to work, close to home.  It's not their problem if logging families suffer, or the devastating affect it will have on struggling sawmills and the equipment, supply, and hardware trades.

While lawsuits pile up demanding that "rural character" must be preserved to keep land use just as it was when the Growth Management Act (GMA) passed, this aberration will be ignored despite its also saying, "Encourage the conservation of productive forest lands."   This issue has been driven by anti-logger sentiment from the start.

Priorities?  There are homeless people living under bridges and in cars, a serious lack of adequate mental health facilities, and inmates at the county jail sometimes sleep on the floors of overcrowded cells.  But hey, the majority on this council likes parks, and they want to attract well-heeled hikers.  Supposedly locals will put on their trekkers and hike between towns (the park will "connect communities" despite rain, snow and whatever). Yup, one line of bull followed another to establish "facts" that this huge park is essential to the community's health and quality of life.  Yeah, right.

Truth or Dare - last blast.

"Backcountry preserve," what a joke.  All this land is within spitting distance of the freeway, within 10 miles from I-5 and the mall.   The hills are alive, with the sound of semi's...

Save the water?  Not even qualified water-savvy conservationists believe it will make a difference.  This footage is from the DNR's inter-trust transfer hearing on May 9, 2011

We need another 8,844 acres of park?  This county has more parkland per capita than any other county. This would bring the total acreage to 16,000 acres, in a county where only 11% of all land is owned privately.  The "need" for parkland was never what this was about.   What was it about?

The council people voting for this know the genesis of the idea:

DNR is unwilling to provide recreation on the timberland?   The Land Trust and the Parks Department have promulgated that Pinnochio-nose fib in official memos and reports.   And they scowled through DNR’s recreation outreach offer on February 26th.  The state officials explained that they could move quickly to make Whatcom County a high-priority recreation area, and they would accommodate active mountain biking, horseback riding, hunting and even off-road vehicles (ORV's) in separate zones and still keep the land productive.   It could pay for itself, but oh no!

County parks would take better care of this land than the DNR?  Another total con.  Proponents wrote about breaking the DNR's Habitat Conservation Plan ("HCP") when the land was under their control (from public records):

In your wildest dreams, can you imagine that government planners, highly paid to work on your behalf, would put place to live, human safety, and independent rural life in the bottom tier of “community attributes/values and relative priority”?  Watch your ass, Jack.  That’s exactly what they’re doing. Check out these priorities:

That's a mighty 'progressive' agenda to impose on all plans and the water users of Whatcom County! WE wonder how many people agree with it. It sure doesn't sound like a cross section of interests from across the county to us. So, who might come up with a list like that?  WE can tell you:

• Henry Bierlink, Farm Friends
  
• Clare Fogelsong, City of Bellingham
  
• Sue Blake, WSU Extension Whatcom County
  
• Peter Gill, Whatcom County Planning Dept.
  
• George Boggs, Whatcom Conservation District
  
• Oliver Grah, Nooksack Tribe Natural Resources Dept.
  
• Eric Carabba, Whatcom Land Trust
  
• Kasey Ignac, Washington Dept. of Ecology
  
• Alan Chapman, Lummi Nation Natural Resources Dept.
  
• Bert Rubash, Marine Resources Committee
  
• Treva Coe, Nooksack Tribe Natural Resources Dept.
  
• Rebecca Schlotterback, Public Utility District No. 1
  
• Erika Douglas, Whatcom County Public Works
  
• Marcus Schumacher, CCA North Sound
  
• Barbara Fisher, Lummi Nation Natural Resources Dept.
  
• Wendy Steffensen, Re Sources
  
• Bill Verwolf, City of Lynden/Small Cities Partnership
  

Who would coordinate such a meeting, working up lists like that?  Becky Peterson, an independent contractor working under the business name “Geneva Consulting.”   There's a lot of special interest on the list, innit?

Who would mastermind and pay for this?  The Puget Sound Partnership.  Whatcom County joined up as a "local integrating organization" a while ago.

With our money?  Yes!   They use federal and state tax money, quite a lot of it.

Why are they doing this?  To “restore the watershed.”

Huh?  Restore to what level? What’s going on?  There's all this talk about the Growth Management Act having to protect "rural character" to conserve farms and agriculture. Independent rural living is a zero? Can this be true? Yes!  Government, supposed to protect human rights and safety, prioritizes everything but!

At a meeting held January 31 in Bellingham, these seventeen people met for two and a half hours in their third meeting of the “Whatcom Integration Team” (WIT for short). 

But a handful of citizens heard about this and showed up uninvited, sitting on the sidelines stunned. They could hardly contain shock and awe at what was described as a “technical” planning exercise, and all kinds of other local plans were discussed.  It seems that everything that happens in the watershed falls within their reach, they say - to protect water and fish.   To do that, they'll have to involve themselves in land use, forestry, farming - everything.  Where we live, what we do.

How could “community attributes/values” like cultural be considered technical?  Water rights, baby.  And planning control. To put a finer point on it, to determine which “watershed services” are most important in the big ecological scheme of things - at least according to these government bureaucrats, tribal staffers, and a very short list of preferred special interest groups who live on grants, rent-seeking.

You see, use of water is managed by the state (the Department of Ecology), and that use has to be “beneficial.”  Very few people have documented water rights on paper, stapled to the deeds of their property (property: that thing you used to have free use of).  While the state Supreme Court made it clear that people have a right to use water without permits (many if not most are legally "exempt"), the use has to be beneficial.  Without documents and permits, and even with them, water use has limits.  But the limits are pretty generous.  That may change drastically here in one of the most water-soaked places in the state, if the planners have free rein.

Is your use of water less beneficial than somebody else’s?  That’s the gazillion dollar question.  If you live independently in a rural area,  you're definitely at the bottom of this list, value/attribute =  zero.  How did this water planning business get so far out of whack?

Whatcom County falls inside a big watershed that was categorized years ago by the state as Water Resource Inventory Area #1 (WRIA for short, sounds like “why-rah”).  Back in 1998, the legislature in Olympia came up with a way for folks who don’t have formal water rights, plus the few who do, to work out watershed planning together.  Whether people drew water from the ground (like, from a well) or from the surface (from a river or stream), they’d all work as something called a Planning Unit.  What’s the bill that set up this process?  It's the Watershed Planning Act, RCW 90.82. Take a look at it.

So, that sounds pretty good.  What’s going on?  Are these people who are coming up with lists like this supposed to be setting goals and  for our watershed?  Big NO. 

Whatcom County Charter says that only council, our legislature, can adopt plans.  In Charter 2.20(d) it says council’s job is “To adopt by ordinance comprehensive plans, including improvement plans for the present and future development of the county.”

When that planning act was passed, each inventory area (each WRIA) was legally obliged to develop its own local plan.  The law said an area’s county government (or governments, if a watershed crossed county lines), plus its biggest city, local tribes if there were any, and the biggest “utility” had a duty to  make sure the work got done.  So City of Bellingham, the Lummi Tribe, PUD #1 and Whatcom County signed a contract to work together, and Whatcom County took the official “lead agency” role.  Then the Nooksack Tribe joined-up.  As a group, these five were called the IG - or “initiating governments.”  And the state paid money for them to get something started called a Planning Unit.  The law said,

The purpose of this chapter is to develop a more thorough and cooperative method of determining what the current water resource situation is in each water resource inventory area of the state and to provide local citizens with the maximum possible input concerning their goals and objectives for water resource management and development.

It is necessary for the legislature to establish processes and policies that will result in providing state agencies with more specific guidance to manage the water resources of the state consistent with current law and direction provided by local entities and citizens through the process established in accordance with this chapter.

So, the local process was supposed to provide the local citizens a real role in planning, not pass it off.  This was supposed to give state agencies guidance, "direction provided by local entities and citizens" not the reverse. Sounds very reasonable.

And a bottom up Planning Unit was formed just as the law required, and County Council approved that in 2005.  This local group (actually, a group of groups called Planning Unit “caucuses” for water associations, cities, the PUD and so on) worked together for four years. The county’s departments would attend, and contractors were hired who were supposed to help determine the water situation. The Planning Unit would review and vote on the acceptability of technical work as studies were done.  Some very extremely expensive work was done by USGS and a university that didn’t go well.  The "current situation" wasn't well understood.  And as time went by, questions were asked that were unwelcome.  By August 2009, the bureaucrats decided to simply “stop convening” the Planning Unit; even though there were protests about it.  But the initiating governments - the big five -  decided to hand over the work to their own staff, called the Management Team.

In short, that’s how so many bureaucrats ended up doing what they’re doing.  After the Planning Unit was out of the picture, they adopted and they're "implementing" a new set of plans on their own.  And at this point does this look anything like what the Planning Act called for?  And the Puget Sound Partnership is directing how other local plans should fit into its own regional "Action Plan."

WE did some poking around, and discovered the “WIT” meetings have been happening way outside the Council's knowledge and view. We can thank the Puget Sound Partnership and the WRIA 1 initiating governments (IG's) for WIT.   They abandoned the council approved process, and departments and agencies have run everything internally. The WRIA initiating governments joined up with the  regional group of governor appointees, the Puget Sound Partnership which brought them lots of grant money.  PSP is an unelected quasi-agency, a bureaucracy with zero accountability to citizens. Geneva Consulting works directly for the PSP as well as to WRIA; very convenient.

With work like this going on, WE think it's good that citizens have gone into "WRIA Watch" mode.  People are meeting at the Rome Grange at 7 pm Friday Feb 8, and there may be another meeting Monday Feb 11, too! 

Write to council right away and call too if you can, if you think this is mixed-up and backwards.  Better speak loudly and soon.   

WRIA 1 desperately wants to hand even more of this over to the PUD next Tuesday February 12 on a one-way trip that will take this totally beyond the Watershed Planning Act.  The PUD only serves water directly to Cherry Point, but they want to take over planning, to develop a "Water Supply Plan" for the whole county.  Sound anything like what the WRIA law requires?  "The powers' are furious that everyday people, particularly farmers and rural people, should try to stop this.  When you explain your concerns, you might want to remind them that...

Some citizens attended the Whatcom Integration Team meeting held December 11. This is the report submitted by one ~ Editors

Have you ever wondered where all of the money goes that you and the rest of the nation freely provide to our government?  You hear all kinds of stories of the bridges to nowhere, extravagant agency parties, and overpriced muffins.  Well, the following is an example of that very same type of spending going on in Whatcom County.

Have you ever heard of the Puget Sound Partnership (PSP)?  Well, PSP is a Non-Government Organization that was charged “by Governor Gregoire and the Legislature… to create a real Action Agenda that turns things around and leads to a healthy Puget Sound”.  The PSP states that it “is a community effort of citizens, governments, tribes, scientists and businesses working together to restore and protect Puget Sound”.

Here in Whatcom County the PSP and our county government are financing a special group of people called the Whatcom Integration Team (WIT) with our money to “clean up and protect Puget Sound”.  Having attended the second in a series of up to eight  monthly meetings between November of 2012 and June of 2013, the pointless spending and the planned continuum of spending was obvious.  There were 17 individuals siting at the table and an additional 3 sitting away from the table for a total of 20.  When you assume an hour travel time to and from the two hour meeting it adds up to 60 man-hours of work.  If you also assume a very conservative average wage $50.00 per hour, that is about $3,000.00 per meeting and a total of $24,000 for all of the planned meetings.  Add into this the cost of the contracted meeting facilitator.  The County Executive just recently increased the contract value for this person an addition $90,000 for a total of approximately ???.

A second and somewhat unexpected sign of the wanton spending was the open comments by participants that they needed to make sure that they structured the meetings results to identify the best outcomes to assure their ability to obtain additional grant moneys from the government.  It is also noted that the meeting schedule (interestingly called a “roadmap”) shows that for Meeting #5 (in March) the “members consider options for criteria for grant funding purposes”.  One can draw their own conclusions from this type of thinking, but to us it is wasteful thinking and not necessarily keeping with any concept of reduced government and reduced spending.

The third indication of this fanciful and unnecessary over-spending only proposition was the makeup of the meeting members.  The members are from our county and city planning staff, from Ecology, from the tribes, from the Whatcom Land Trust, from Farm Friends and from various other resource groups and non-profit organizations.  Where are the citizens and business representation that were identified in the PSP community effort?  Where are the local experts from the water, farming and timber industries?  Where are the other private business interests? Where are the property owners whose fates are being determined by this unofficial and non-binding non-government organizational “Team”?

Finally, the meeting provided the cover for an outcome that could surely have been determined by even the very minimally informed progressive thinker. The first meeting  identified the ecosystem the members wanted to include, the services or things that the ecosystem may provide for, the pressures or threats that society places on these ecosystem services, and the community values and attributes that are part of the ecosystems.  Wow, is that a mouthful!  As an example, forests are an ecosystem.  Biodiversity is a service for this ecosystem.  One of the pressures or threats to this service is recreational activities while recreation is also an example of a community value or attribute.  The meeting facilitator had organized all of this information into 10 separate ecosystems, 12 services, 16 pressures and 20 values.   These items were divided into two separate tables that each shared the ecosystems on the horizontal axis and the ecosystem services on the vertical axis.  One table identifies the community attributes for each ecosystem or ecosystem service and the second table identifies the pressures on each of the ecosystem or ecosystem service (refer to the WIT Tables) (pdf).   After the first hour of the meeting the members had pretty much agreed on the tables with a few additions to both the community values and to the pressures.  The facilitator pointed out that the local community “visioning” results were reviewed to assure that nothing had been overlooked. (Let’s make sure we cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s.)

During the second hour of the meeting, the members were given two sets of four each individual sticky notes.  The members were instructed to use these pads to help determine the priorities of the community attributes listed on one whiteboard, and the separate attributes for the pressures as listed on a second whiteboard.   Those values and pressures that received the most sticky notes would have the highest priorities.  Well, who could have guessed the outcome from such a Delphi experience?  Lo and behold, the top three community values were sustainability, green infrastructure, and quality of life respectively.  The top three pressures were climate change, residential and commercial development; and, agriculture and livestock grazing respectively.  These are personal impressions, not science. Are these not the primary focus of the all too familiar effort for the increasing pressure that seems to grow in leaps and bounds on the ecosystem called property rights?   All too many meetings just like this one are just a small part of the increasing threat to our rights as citizens in the name of the environment and the collective.

This is just one example of these non-binding non-government organizations that seem to inundate our culture and government activity.  Does it seem ironic that these non-binding findings are generated by professional, full time paid employees who are doing their “day” jobs?  Where is the community effort?  Where are  the citizens and business members?  Unsurprisingly, they are working at their day jobs to pay the individuals sitting at these tables scheming to usurp our constitutionally protected natural rights, under the cover of environmentalism.

One of the scariest things is that this example is also going on without the full knowledge and approval of our own County Council.  Funding for many of these groups does not pass through the council agenda, as they can be approved by County Department Heads or the County Executive. We all need to pay more attention to where the money is coming from and what it is being spent on. 

The County Council should put the Whatcom Integration Team out of business by taking away their funding.  This should be the WIT’s end.

If somehow you were one of the folks who missed participating in the "extensive community engagement" that the Northwest Economic Council conducted last fall (called the Whatcom Futures Project, a visioning exercise) WE suggest you look at its webpage. Get a load of the comments collected and the vision they drafted.  (There are links to follow down at the bottom of that page.)

After you do, you'll wonder why this exercise would make County Executive Jack Louws or anyone else particularly comfortable with the group's "merger with Whatcom County Council of Governments."   Except - it's so gosh darned exciting.

An announcement was posted by the Herald on December 13th, so this must have been in the hopper a while.  Having seen that latest survey, WE can't imagine why this group would be given a major role in deciding folks' fates instead of being shown the door. 

'Ever heard of them?

The name "Northwest Economic Council" sounds official, doesn't it?  It's had that image a long time.  But it's a private non-profit which has built a nice, job-secure business subsisting on grants for years.  Nobody elects the people who run it.  Those we do elect don't appoint them.  So, like so many outfits in this town, they make a career of inviting decent business people with cachet to sit on their board and the staff gets paid for advising and promoting, and cranking out reports full of hyperbole and boilerplate.

What matters most right now is their "vision" and the expanded planning role they seem to be getting.  Should a private special interest group be that involved in running the public funding  steam-shovel?  This group talks about shaping the community using financial incentives.  What a nice word for... what?  Gifts to the like-minded?  EDI money, which comes from sales tax, is supposed to be used to finance public facilities.  But the fund's use has always been stretched well beyond capital work, contorted over the years.  If this board transition proceeds, WE expect to see a lot more grants landing in the laps of private groups with remote justification.  Beyond that, too much meddling in "economic development" defies the effectiveness of free-market mechanisms that - never forget - are entirely free of cost.

With funding from another special interest group, this self declared "council" held four quick meetings last fall to prove support for their own joint "strategic goals for the community."  By all accounts only about 100 people actually attended - total.  On the strength of that they wrote a 20-year vision for Whatcom County.  Let's put that in proportion.

The events are described on the NW Econ site as “extensive community engagement”, but participation (100/203,000 – which was our 2010 population) was only about a .0004296 sample.  That doesn't even register 0%.  That's mighty extensive engagement.   Now this group, with a straight face, will be mind-melding with the Whatcom County Council of Governments.

(If you're one of the 99.9995704% of the population who missed out on the dot-exercises and donuts, here are the dates, times and places the visioning occurred:

• Tuesday, September 25 – Blaine – Blaine High School – 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
  
• Wednesday, September 26 – Bellingham – Squalicum Boathouse – 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm
  
• Wednesday, October 3 – Maple Falls – East County Regional Resource Center – 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
  
• Thursday, October 4 – Lynden – Lynden Library – 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm)
  

In all due respect, a smattering of on-line comments and letters have dribbled in since those four meetings.   But the "input" is a sight to behold.  There's plenty of anti-industry sentiment, big appetites for ballooning government services, and of course the ever-popular bent toward "conservation," which really means diminished rural property use to shoo people into dense corridors.  Let's get on with that buy local, stack 'n pack urban future.   Read the hyperbole - that's exactly what it is.

Jack Louws should advance  paperwork to council about  this EDI board structure, but will he?  If he seeks authorization, it may be in a painful way.  A "CEO" asking for "board approval" is a yukky formality.  Mind you, the transition, as Louws calls it, started anyway last month, with press releases, back slapping, and county website edits that make it appear that all is in order.  Why should we need - like, representatives - thinking and stuff?  "Uh, that's an Executive-appointed board anyhow, and the last exec sure made a lot of friends with that.   And it's only that other money anyway.   Who can say no to the CEO?"

Before it slips into the annals of history, see the current EDI board make-up, created by ordinance, in code at WCC 2.130.  If council allows a change of composition of the board, no more citizens need participate.  Just staff,  lobbying "experts" and officials, public-private partnering.  Imagine the sizzle and dazzle, all that money to dispense, and pitchfests to hold.  Representation always was a farce.

Neither organization has any taxing authority technically.  WCOG has principally been a regional transportation authority, but with a huge budget.  Together, the pair can wreak sweet havoc with their push-poll methods and those special Futurevision glasses.  WCOG can ramp up Smart-Trips and Northwest Economic Council can ramp up the SmartGrowth and we'll all be so happy, with our swell new quality of life!

They're starting with an update of the $600 million+ CEDS list.  Then they can roll up their sleeves and start throwing oodles of money at pet projects and enterprises in the places they fancy.  EDI spending isn't reviewed by the Planning Commission, or a part of the 6-Year Capital Improvement Plan.  While technically County Council must approve EDI recommendations, few recommendations have ever been turned away.

Us?  We the People will keep on paying the sales tax and B&O tax that fills the fund.  It’s more government – without being government.   WE don’t mind having or paying for the government WE choose. But for government to make us pay for its own cheering section – this big extra layer of bureaucracy – no better qualified (and who cares if they were?) – making the most basic life decisions for us, at our expense. It’s unaccountable shadow government that costs us more than money.

WE received a rather interesting invitation a few days ago from the Washington State Transportation Commission to participate in something called a V.O.W.S. survey.  Maybe a few readers received the invitation too.  WE almost deleted it.

But out of curiosity we did a little dredging to find out what kind of “org” V.O.W.S. is.  You see, the e-mail invitation said “voiceofwashingtonsurvey.org.”  Something-dot-org usually stands for “organization.”  WE checked the Secretary of State website and found that no such organization exists.   So, what’s up with that?

It turned out that V.O.W.S. stands for “Voice of Washington State,” which is a government outreach effort “funded” by the Washington State Transportation Commission itself (meaning “with our tax dollars”).  Our impression is that somebody dreamed-up this process to give narrowly-framed surveys a “community-input” look and feel.  WE wonder how many people have participated in V.O.W.S. so far, and how proportionate responses are geographically.  WE doubt many rural people will have their voices heard (like in the Methow Valley or other places far off the beaten path – the ones who use the most gas, and desperately need transportation).  But it’s all-new, just launched in 2012, so there are no reports to see from the project, at least we couldn’t find anything online.  Maybe this will be fair, but we expect it's intended to collect the opinions of city-folks and wherever big voting blocks are.

Getting back to the current V.O.W.S. survey, the choice being offered is pretty blunt.  The basic theme is, “Would you like to pay more taxes and fees or get less service from the DOT?”

WE think that proposition sounds more like a threat or ultimatum than a “choice.”   The agency seems to be saying, “Pay more, or else."

A premise, a question like this is very much like asking, “Would you like to pay more for your food or go hungry?”   That's not a fair choice.   It offers no reasonable option, like not going hungry by eating something cheaper, like a burger instead of a steak, or maybe a bowl of rice or cereal instead of that burger (veggie or otherwise).

The VOWS survey offered zilch in the way of alternatives to DOT's existing programs.  It only asked how much more a person would be willing to pay, using various scales like this, with it's incoherent note and instructions:

WE think readers should know more about how state transportation money is spent before filling out something like this.

In 2011-2013 the state transportation budget page shows that $111,500,000 (over $111 million) of DOT's operating expenditures were spent on public transportation  while $429,700,000 was spent on highway maintenance and operations.  That means about  25% of all operations money went to “public transportation.”  WE're not aware of any statewide  “public transit.”   Truth is, the lion's share of transit money flows straight into county and city coffers.   (To be fair, a few transit lines connect counties, but only in the more populated and urban areas.)

There are some other big-ticket items on the expenditure list that aren't related to state roads.   You'll see $88,900,000 “paid to other agencies” (in the operations section), and in the capital expenditure section the page says $94,200,000 spent on “local programs.”  That’s a huge amount of money ($88.9 million + $94.2 million = $183.1 million) going to things besides state highways and roads.   Where does it go?  It looks like a lot funnels into things like our nebulous "regional agency," Whatcom Council of Governments.   See how much the state spends on rail ($29 million on rail operations + $426.4 on capital projects = $455.4 million total).  Apparently a lot of that matching money  helps “sustain” the mother of all fiscal trainwrecks, Amtrack.   WE like trains, but wonder how efficient all that rail spending actually is.

You’ll find a “funding options” screen along the way:

Don't be shy about clicking "Definitely Not" across the board if you think these "options" are bad news.  There many screens, read each carefully.  WE think a lot of the fees and taxes proposed look very regressive.  The less folks make, the bigger the hit on the pocketbook to simply transport yourself.  You'll find a screen toward the end of the survey to enter personal comments.  If you're willing to give this a whirl, here’s the link to log-in to the VOWS Survey Panel

WE think the survey should have asked, “Do you think the state’s spending your money on the right things?” at the very beginning.  WE have serious doubts about the propriety of spending state transportation taxes on local transit and trails, and for "economic" and social engineering escapades for towns and cities like Complete Streets.

This is a pretty big state.  It’s bigger than a lot of countries like Guatemala, Nicaragua, Greece, Nepal and Uruguay.  Size-wise, at 71,300 square miles (that’s 184,666 square kilometers) Washington falls between Syria and Cambodia.   We need state highways and roads to move freely between cities and counties.  That's much more important than city transit.

Moving people and goods to work and to market, to facilitate the U.S. post, and for trucks to make deliveries to our homes is very high priority.  But in the last twenty years or so, spenders have worked hard creating a “regional” approach to transportation that's a fig-leaf for spending on projects that honestly don't rise to statewide significance.

WE have low expectations that the situation will change on its own.   Cities and counties where the big concentration of votes are love wallowing in the transportation pig trough.  They claim they’re bringing home the bacon, bringing federal (and state) taxes back to us.  But WE wonder, how much better would transportation be if the approach to spending was more rational?   Think about the overlap in transportation missions with layers of duplicate paperwork wasted on local projects (state, county, and city).  A lot of transportation work could be done faster, cheaper, and with a lot less confusion if jurisdictions took more direct responsibility for their own needs.  The same work could still get done, and we might have a nickel in our pockets at the end of the day.  How could the situation be improved?

We’ll cut to the chase.   WE have a theory.   Ready?

Federal transportation:   WE think federal funds should be spent on national-scale projects, not state and local ones.   National work would include the interstate highway system, airports that serve interstate and international traffic, and other projects that benefit the whole country (like work at border crossings, that would make sense).

State transportation:  WE think state transportation money should be directed strictly to work that's legitimately state-scale, like state highways and roads (pa-leeze!), not for county roads or city streets, buses, or local street improvement projects, park trails, and so forth.  Sound reasonable?

County transportation:  WE think county transportation funds should be collected locally and spent on roads within a county that connect its towns and cities and to get us to the state and interstate roads.   In rare cases, trails might be okay but only when the towns are close enough to make trails practical for walking and biking (or whatever).  WE think recreation shouldn't be confused with transportation.  And, lastly, county money shouldn’t be used to supplement city budgets.  There was a time when our two biggest cities (Bellingham and Lynden) had their own bus systems.  Then the WTA became a massive [whatever it is].  That wouldn't have happened without state and even federal funding.  But that’s a topic for another post.  Let’s just say for now that WE suggest the WTA has become a transportation sinkhole.

Lastly, Cities:   They need to take direct responsibility for street and trail projects within their boundaries.  The feds, state and the county constantly shovel money into cities.  What’s amazing is how much money goes to city transportation projects here when our cities and towns are so tiny, transportation-wise.   Check out the reality:

Yet millions are spent on transportation in these small cities, schlepping-up state and federal transportation funds.   WE think a river of state and federal money is misspent in this state, flowing into “local” transportation that’s way out of whack with actual state and federal need.   And the Transportation Commission wants to know how much more we'd like to spend.

Knowing what we do, we think this V.O.W.S. survey and the new transportation mind-set are seriously flawed, headed in the wrong direction.  This is a huge state and on every level transportation priorities look out of whack.   Here's a good article that was published in the Weekly Standard last year on this subject, "Interstate 2.0"

Take the VOWS survey if you're willing.  Again, here’s the V.O.W.S. link    Don't be shy - share your thoughts below too.   Don't be afraid to disagree.   This really is an open forum.

Because the feds, the State of Washington and Whatcom County don’t provide much hands-on healthcare service to the public (unless you’re in jail), you may wonder who may be making decisions “on our behalf” now that the Affordable Care Act is rolling ahead.  Who’s putting Obamacare into action here?

The answer is Whatcom Alliance for Healthcare Access (WAHA).  Effective November 30, 2012, its name was updated to “Whatcom Alliance for Health Advancement.”  
Their website says the organization will remain the same, with a new look. 

While WAHA says it’s non-partisan, it has long claimed our medical system was (or is) broken, and WAHA’s issue advocacy has only supported one solution (ahem), Obamacare.  Since last year, WAHA has been directly involved in transforming the healthcare delivery system from the free-market to the new ACO (accountable care organization) model.  Take a look under the hood of the preliminary plan (in particular the "Vision for Payment Reform" on Page 7) to see the sweeping changes in store.

WE did some background dredging to turn over rocks as we generally do, and discovered that Regina Delahunt – this county’s own Public Health Director – is also the agent and president of this non-profit, which is also technically a charity.  As such, WAHA has been doing pretty darned well.  It received a massive multi-year grant from the feds for up to $5.7 million to coordinate work that’s coincidentally tied to Regina Delahunt’s day-job.

WE don’t besmirch, but we do wonder if that pushes the boundaries of "public-private" partnership.  It seems odd and complicated that a public employee, who’s a department head with a direct interest in the county’s relationship with an organization, should also be the organization's official “agent” and “president.”

Delahunt introduced the "Community Transformation Grant" grant, a federal CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) program that was awarded in January to WAHA.  Without question, the federal government is hell-bent on helping "communities implement policies that sustain environmental and systems changes" to  "achieve health equity."  The minutes of the February 7, 2012 “Board of Health” committee meeting fail to mention Delahunt's central relationship with WAHA.

This 2007 report page named Delahunt in the “partner” role:

Given the number of doctors, dentists, labs, and specialty care centers here plus PeaceHealth St. Joseph Hospital which is a first class medical center, who believes that Whatcom citizens have ever been systematically deprived of access to healthcare?

It doesn’t matter.  WAHA is here, it’s Obamacare central, and they say they’re representing you, me, and all of us.  Ever hear of them?  A lot of decision making about what care we should get, from whom, and at what cost will be run through WAHA.

Whether you love it or hate it, the healthcare system seems headed toward something very monopolistic with all this central guidance (that's extremely expensive).

Have you noticed how many doctors have changed their shingles lately, and that more than ever say “PeaceHealth”?   WE don’t have a beef with PeaceHealth, but we understand that most small practices and practitioners have had little choice but join-up to become part of an ACO (affordable care organization) just to stay afloat.  Some say a lot of docs will retire soon.  Who knows if that’s true; only time will tell.

Whatever your position, WE thought we’d encourage people to pay attention to WAHA and its relationship with (and within) Whatcom County.  It’s hard to know how “auditable” the effort will be.  Most of what’s available about WAHA is its own glowing hyperbole.  Ever hear of the “Care Transitions Project” or “Project Impact”?

They say they’re providing “a community process.”  Does that mean anything to ya?  Community process, how?   But here's what they show in presentations...

... who are the "community members"?   Mostly insurance companies and provider insiders.  Here’s what WAHA writes about itself at its website (it has a couple versions:  this, and this – take your pick):

Whatcom Alliance for Healthcare Access has wanted only one thing for years – central command and control, and they’ve definitely got the lead seat.  Why would we expect them to write anything but a promising "outlook" as they go forward, spending millions?  Who will hold “affordable health care” accountable to us?

ALERT:  There's been talk that a "special facilities district" could be formed for the purpose of creating a countywide ACO.  Sound tame?  NOT.   Such a district created by council (not a public vote) would potentially (a) have only few token elected public officials on its board, (b) with "operative" appointees filling more seats, and [brace yourself] (c) such a district could have broad TAXING POWERS.   But this is wouldn't be like most special purpose districts.  This would have less citizen control.  Just as for the WTA, citizens wouldn't have direct accountability through the ballot box.   We have real local control over our fire districts, school districts, and water districts - but we wouldn't have it over a healthcare district like this.  A proposal is looming - probably coming early in 2013 by all accounts.

Last council session, on November 20th, the county (WE think wisely) turned down the opportunity to involve us in a demonstration for Washington State’s “Health Path Strategy 2.”  That would have put the county in the position of being responsible for the healthcare choices of people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid (“dual” eligibility).   What other “strategies” will WAHA field and present on behalf of the state and HHS?

WE don't know how WAHA will horse-collar doctors and other providers, or if services will be more or less available through our health plans.  However this comes down, how much transparency there will be as price-setting negotiations occur?   The public should know more about that, but we doubt much if anything will ever revealed about the cost of all the new overhead that provides zero in terms of actual provider service.

There’s a lot about this that promises to be everything WE feared Obamacare would be; a big game of Monopoly with insiders at the helm, managing “Community Chest.”  Pay attention, ask questions, and stay tuned.  Here's WAHA's new look and URL - dig-dig!

Let's use the top line to talk about the bottom line. Wind power is economically unsustainable. The sustainability folks are pushing for wind power because they think it's renewable and environmentally sustainable. Think again. 

The number of windmills that would be required to produce sufficient energy for peak demand in worst-case, calm weather conditions would require swarms of these things, waving their arms from practically every hill crest on every square mile of land in the USA. That's during the day. At night, the endless array of flashing red air navigation hazard lights just looks creepy. In addition to the visual blight, the environmental impact of these ugly creatures would be significant and detrimental. And, that doesn't account for the corridors and rights-of-way for electrical power lines necessary to transport their electrical output from the rural areas to the masses huddled in the urban infill areas. It is only a matter of time before there will be significant blow-back against these wind machines from landowners and environmentalists alike. 

Contrast that with hydro power which, where available, can produce and store abundant renewable and clean energy for peak demand, in addition to providing flood control, self-supporting recreational areas, water supply and so on. What's more, hydro power is much less expensive per kilowatt hour than wind power. Guess which technology the sustainables want to demolish and rewild!

There is a 7 PM county council meeting on Wednesday November 7th at the County Courthouse at 311 Grand Avenue to discuss and vote on the revised wind turbine ordinance. It is expected that the council will vote on the ordinance at this meeting. This has come up because people want to install wind generators at the top of Galbraith Mountain.

Given the economic and environmental unsustainability,  why would anybody want a permit to install one of these things? Ah, yes well don't you see, there's the rub: the sustainables have managed to sink their mandibles into government to the extent that government will subsidize these wind generators. Unscrupulous opportunists will glom onto these government subsidies to line their pockets at taxpayer expense. So we will pay twice: once at the electric meter, and again on tax day. 

The sustainables have also co-opted government to place all sorts of rules and regulations to prevent the kinds of development that they oppose. WE submit that they need to live by their own rules. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you possibly can, WE encourage you to attend the council meeting on Wednesday, and encourage the council to keep the restrictions at their current levels. 

Note: residential windmills might actually be of some value. On windy days, they can save homeowners on their power bills, and maybe even turn their electric meter backwards on occasion. If individual families want to invest in something like that, WE have no objection -- although there probably are zoning rules against it. 

Beyond their lights and noise, these inevitably batter all kinds of creatures that live in the air.   The monster machines can and do fail - in storms, icing, turbine speed brake failures, and outright collapse.  Watch some of these:

For all those who haven't filled out your ballots yet - WE figured it was a good time to trot out this classic, for inspiration.

'Nuff said.   Now, go - VOTE (for sanity, liberty, thrift, limits, accountability ... )